


Preacher's Wife

by Lasertits



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Betrayal & Revenge, Bottom Kylo Ren, Casual Sex, Childhood Friends, Darkfic, Killer Ben, M/M, Murder Ballad-y, Poor Hux, Top Armitage Hux, small town AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 21:13:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11609064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasertits/pseuds/Lasertits
Summary: Ben is a weird kid. He's younger than Armie, but already taller. He has a long, lopsided face, unruly black hair and a girly mouth.There's something about the way he looks at you, this stillness he has about him, that pushes other kids away. Ben has no friends his age, but he has Armie because they're neighbours.





	Preacher's Wife

Ben's mom is running for Mayor. "Leftist", says Brendol, Armie's father. "Not quite a commie, but naive".

"Yes, Sir", Armie says and eats his dinner, straight backed and with a napkin tucked into his shirt collar, the way Brendol likes it. Still, Brendol and Maratelle, that's Armie's stepmother, are friends with Leia, because they're new in town and Leia has connections. It's casseroles and picnics and quiet conversations over wine, about everything but politics. Armie's parents are soon taken in with Leia's charm, and then they're friends for real.

Ben's dad is some deadbeat drifter. Once, there's a worn down old convertible parked on Leia's driveway. It stays there for three days, then they hear shouting, and it roars off in a cloud of diesel fumes and dust.

"He'll be back", Ben says. "I wish he wouldn't."

Ben is a weird kid. He's younger than Armie, but already taller. He has a long, lopsided face, unruly black hair and a girly mouth. There's something about the way he looks at you, this stillness he has about him, that pushes other kids away. Ben has no friends his age, but he has Armie because they're neighbours. Brendol would be displeased, were Armie to back away, too. Bad for their relations with Leia, and through her, with the upper crust of town society.

Ben's always bringing Armie little gifts.

A pretty stone from the river. A butterfly behind glass (a rare species around here, Ben explains. Caught in the junkyard at the edge of town). Once, half of Ben's dead grandfather's woolen scarf. Armie's not sure what he's supposed to do with that, but he knows how Ben loved his grandfather. He thanks Ben and hugs the cut-off scarf to his chest. It's high summer but it's been raining for days, and the air is chilly in the evenings. They're standing right on the border between their lawns, where a dead hedge bush has been dug up and never replaced, because it's a convenient place for crossing over. The bare ground here is trampled hard and smooth.

"I want you to have it. You're important, too", Ben says, and runs the backs of his fingers lightly down Armie's cheek. Then he flees.

They don't talk about that, after. There's a heat wave again, and they bike away every day to Bottomless Lake (or Tadpole Lake, or the Hole, it has many names among the children. Armie has no idea what it's really called). It's a tiny, perfectly round thing in the middle of the forest, accessible only by cow paths. It's probably fed by a wellspring or something, because it just sits there alone, no streams near it, but the water is clear and icy cold.

Haunted, they say, twin girls who drowned there. They'll grab you by the ankles if you swim out too far. "Bullshit", Ben scoffs, flipping his wet hair back. "Look, just waterweeds", and he pulls on something long and slimy, growing in a pillar from the bottom deep below, until it snaps.

They swim there in the early mornings and at sunset, when the other kids have gone and they're alone. It's better for Armie, too, because the tall trees crowding round the lake throw everything in shadow so he doesn't burn. Sun lotion never helped him much. Ben whoops and hollers and makes cannonballs from the low cliffs on the north side of the lake. Armie threads water, out of splashing distance, and laughs.

Then a kid from school goes missing. Some firstgrader who's sent down to the store for milk, only to vanish without a trace. There's police cars and search parties and the town mayor gives a speech, but they don't find her. Armie's parents and Leia say that someone must have kidnapped her. She joins a long, long list of missing people on a national website, and there's tips from all over the country but it's never her.

"Don't go to that lake anymore", their parents say. "Stick close where we can see you." So Armie sneaks out through the window, and Ben does too, and they bike towards the woods. Then Armie has the flu for a week, and then another one goes missing.

It's an older kid, this time. One of the cool boys, who hang out down by the football field, and shout things at Ben and Armie when they have to go past. In the pictures, he has watercombed hair and a sweet, open expression, but Armie remembers him better as the narrow-eyed boy who pushed Armie up against walls with an arm across his throat, and asked where his boyfriend was, faggot, whenever he caught him alone. There's more flashing lights, another search party, and the mayor's looking frazzled because election day is coming up that autumn, and Leia is more popular by far.

"I want to show you something", says Ben a week later. "It's for you". So Armie follows him out past the lake, until the cow paths become deer paths, and they have to leave the bikes behind. They come to a clearing where a giant rosebush, of all things, hangs heavy with overblown flowers and buzzing bees. There's gnarly apple trees, tall blooming cabbage and a single sunflower, too. There's a heap of rubble overgrown with grass, that used to be a cottage, and an ice cellar beside it. Ben smiles at him and shows the new padlock on the heavy, rusted metal door. He has the key in his pocket.

Armie is suddenly afraid. "Let's go", he wants to say, and "don't do that", but he stands frozen. Ben turns the key and the padlock snicks apart. He unhooks it and opens the screeching door. Darkness flows out from inside and a sweet, sticky garbage smell that makes the hairs stand up on Armie's skin. Then Ben clicks the flashlight he has hung from a hook in the ceiling. It's the same red and white one Armie always sees in Ben's and Leia's kitchen, stuck to the fridge with the magnet on the handle. It looks wrong in this place. The ice cellar is flooded with a swinging cone of light. There's someone sitting propped up in the corner.

Armie thinks he throws up before he gets to the bike. Or maybe he stops and does that later. It's all a blur of aching lungs and weeds whipping his bare legs bloody, until he finds the cow path, and the lake, and then blessedly the road. He looks behind him but he has to wipe his eyes to see, they're all wet and blurry. Nobody's following.

Ben doesn't show for two whole days. Armie's parents are in town, on the evening of the third, to see some movie called The Preacher's Wife. The house is quiet and dark. He checks that the doors are locked, shuts all the windows so Ben and Leia won't overhear, and then he goes down to the kitchen and calls.

"You trying to be funny, boy? This another of them prank calls?" The policeman is irritated, eager to get back to work instead of talking to some stupid kid. There are phones ringing and people shouting in the background. Someone calls out, _Terry!_ , and he leans away from the reciever and says " _Yeah, yeah, coming!_ Be quick about it", he says to Armie. "Ain't got all day".

"No, Sir", says Armie, crying as quietly as he can. "It's not a joke. Please believe me." He tells the policeman about Bottomless Lake, about the deer paths beyond it, the cottage ruin and the ice cellar. The. The older boy, sitting way too quiet and relaxed in there. "It's Ben. Ben Solo. 23 Oakhill Drive. He killed them. He's my best friend. He has the key to the padlock. In his pocket."

The line goes quiet for a while. Then the policeman says "You did good. You're a brave kid. Don't you worry, we'll take it from here."

He says something else, but Armie hangs up on him, slides down the wall and sits on the cold stone floor with his arms around his knees. By the time his parents come back, Ben's and Leia's driveway is already full of cars and Leia is screaming.

\----

There's a match going on a screen. The shitty 3D keeps flipping back and forth to flat, making the players hop about across the field like jumping beans. An old man reaches up and bangs it, and it goes all flat. The other sports fans, crowded near, shout and throw nuts at him.

Armitage Hux is only passing by. Some job in Sacramento, thought he'd rent a car instead of fly, because he wasn't in a hurry and he loves to drive. He's starting to regret it now, two run down motels later and one more to go. So he sits here in the local dive bar and he drinks, and reads _Heart of Darkness_ on his phone. He's never been the type to care for sports, and he's hardly about to change that now.

He startles when somebody sits down in his booth, on the faux leather clad bench opposite him. "Hi", the man says, when Hux glances up, and up. He has a ponytail, an easy smile, a leather jacket and he's really built. "Buy you one?" and he indicates Hux's glass which, Hux discovers, is already empty.  
Hux nods, and the stranger smiles. "Kylo." His hand is so large it near swallows Hux's own.

They go back to Hux's room. Kylo can barely fit in there. He looks photoshopped onto the dingy space, out of scale and far too gorgeous once he's taken off his clothes. Hux runs a wondering finger down the dips between Kylo's abs, only to watch them twitch as Kylo shifts his hips forward. His cock is gorgeous, too. Hux kneels on the carpeting, heedless of the grit and ground-down cigarette ash, and takes him in.

Those broad hands feel like bliss when they come up to cradle his head, as Kylo slowly fucks his mouth. He'd happily stay down there all night, but then Kylo pulls off and pants about getting fucked. Hux is too lust drunk so he doesn't understand at first, not until Kylo crawls onto the bed, dips his supple spine low and glances back over his arm at Hux. His black hair falls over one eye.

"Fuck yes", Hux says and stumbles after, rips his shirt over his head and threads his pants off inside out, trips when he gets to underwear and socks and nearly falls. Kylo laughs at him, but when Hux swats him hard as punishment, he moans. Hux soothes the sting with licks and bites, and Kylo spreads his legs wider so Hux can eat him out.

There's single packet condoms and a small bottle of lube in the bedside drawer, offbrand, next to the Bible. The cheap latex is too thick to transfer heat well, but Hux feels the vice grip right away, as Kylo's body clamps down on him as if unsure of whether it wants to keep him out, or hold him there. He stills and massages Kylo's lower back, in long, firm upward strokes, while Kylo gets down on his elbows and moans brokenly. It takes a while, but then he relaxes and Hux can go deep.

"Ah, Armie, God", says Kylo, and were Hux less drunk on cheap whiskey and sex, he would remember that he never said his surname. But he isn't, and he doesn't, and there's nothing in the world right now but Kylo, anyway, with his beautiful sweat-sheened back, his begging and the way his body pulls Hux in, suddenly ravenous for more.

"Gonna come," he gasps, and Kylo says "fuck yes, in me, harder", and reaches down to strip his own cock fast. Kylo goes impossibly tight, every muscle seizing up for a few breathless seconds before he sighs and sprawls bonelessly, tilting his hips back so that Hux can give it to him bruising hard. Hux comes far harder than he's ever done, not with a casual hookup at least. He buries himself as deep as he can go, and pretends there's no barrier between them, that he's seeding himself into Kylo.

They lie together in a tangle. None of them mention Kylo leaving. Hux smokes while Kylo talks, meanderingly, about being a preacher. Some bad place where he used to be, but Jesus came and showed him the way out. Now he roams the highways, saving souls.

"It was the Lord who led me straight to you", he says, all earnest and dark-eyed, and Hux laughs because he's sure God doesn't bother with gay one night stands in motel rooms.

"No, don't laugh, Armie," Kylo says, from where he's rummaging in the pocket of his jacket, slung over a chair just by the bed. "I have something for you". Hux hears, this time, but he doesn't have time to do much more than stare, before Ben straightens up in one quick, graceful motion, and empties a syringe into his neck.

 


End file.
